HWD Daily

You Know You Love Them: the History of Gossip Girl

Hello, Upper East Siders . . . and everyone else, I suppose. Hillary Busis here, still filling in for Rebecca Keegan. It’s Wednesday, and I’m wondering where I stashed all my kicky headbands and plaid skirts. (Do you remember, Dorota?)

Greetings from New York, where—as if it weren’t clear by now—we’re feting the 10th anniversary of a seminal teen drama, flinching at the biggest casualty of the Game of Thrones finale (that would be MTV’s Video Music Awards), and shaking our heads at the continued odiousness of Bachelor in Paradise.

XOXO

Gossip Girl did not change the world—but for 121 witty, backstabbing, beautifully dressed episodes, it made the world a hell of a lot more fun to live in. A decade after the CW series’s splashy debut, Vanity Fair’s own Josh Duboff gathered almost every major player from the cast and creative team for a juicy longread about the show’s life and legacy. Come for Blake Lively and Leighton Meester’s charmingly blasé memories of the show’s humble beginnings; stay for a juicy tidbit about Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s cameo. (“They did it for the money,” co-creator Josh Schwartz says, with a laugh.)

From The CW/Everett Collection.

A NEW KINGPIN

You may know Arturo Castro as Jaime, Ilana’s lovable, drug-dealing roommate on Broad City. But if you tune into the next season of Narcos—which hits Netflix this Friday, September 1—you’ll see an entirely new side of the actor: there, he’s playing the entitled son of a Colombian drug lord, someone who uses his inherited power and privileged position to reign as an obnoxious, inept, totally unqualified leader. Sound familiar? Castro agrees; as he told V.F. contributor Valentina Valentini, his Narcos character does sound an awful lot like . . . Game of Thrones alum King Joffrey. “He’s kind of a psychopath,” Castro says, adding that the Joffrey comparison “is very flattering, because I loved that character. I mean I don’t love who he is—he’s a very hateable person. But it’s such a joy to play somebody sadistic, to be honest. That might come off wrong, but it’s like you get the best, most fucked-up lines. They’re so fun to say and perform.”

NO SOGGY BOTTOMS

The Great British Bake Off is dead; long live The Great British Bake Off! The latest season of the U.K.’s favorite low-stakes reality competition premiered across the pond Tuesday, to great consternation; this is, after all, the first season since the show moved networks, which precipitated a great cast exodus that left celebrity chef Paul Hollywood as Bake Off’s only remaining original cast member. Thankfully for fans, the show’s banter and appealingly browned crusts seem to have survived the transition; Lucy Mangan of The Guardian crows that the series is still “showcasing the best of humanity” in her review, while Michael Hogan of The Telegraph offered similar praise: “Despite losing three-quarters of its stars when it ‘followed the dough’ away from the BBC, Bake Off still tastes as sweet.” What’s more, the revamped series drew solid ratings—a live-plus-one audience of 6.5 million, giving Channel 4 its highest overnight numbers since 2012.

DON’T WANT MY MTV

V.F.’s Yohana Desta e-mails:

Are the MTV Video Music Awards losing their pop-cultural sway? Based on the ratings for the most recent show, it appears likely. The glittering music spectacle only pulled in 5.68 million viewers across 10 platforms this year, despite promises of watercooler moments like the debut of a new Taylor Swift music video and some anti-Donald Trump chatter. But the political jokes never went particularly far, and Swift’s video appeared on YouTube moments after its live debut—so it turns out those enticements just weren’t enough. Oh, and did I mention that the show also went up against the Game of Thrones finale? Because it did—and boy, did it flop by comparison. The fantasy HBO series is still the biggest show on television, notching 12.1 million viewers with its finale—and proving it can’t be stopped by something as ephemeral as an awards show. Sorry, Katy Perry—and better luck to next year’s host, who likely won’t be up against such a massive juggernaut.

SIZING UP DOWNSIZING

V.F.’s Katey Rich writes:

Alexander Payne’s new film, Downsizing, screened for press at the Venice Film Festival Wednesday morning—where critics raved, and V.F.’s contributor Guy Lodge wrote that, in its best parts, “Downsizing seems to play to the director’s best, most acidly rueful instincts. The film will next make its way to Toronto, but with its theatrical release way in the distance (it’s scheduled for December), Paramount has released a brief new teaser—actually, the dreaded teaser-for-a-trailer—to spark curiosity about the movie. What can we learn from 30 seconds of minimal dialogue that’s largely devoted to introducing the starry cast (Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Jason Sudeikis, and Kristen Wiig)? Well, they shelled out for a Talking Heads song . . . and that’s about it. The full trailer arrives September 12, but more festival reviews in the meantime should tell us a lot more.

EVEN MORE TROUBLE IN PARADISE

V.F.’s Laura Bradley writes:

On Tuesday night, Bachelor in Paradise finally—we think—finished examining the scandal that halted production on the reality series earlier this summer. DeMario Jackson appeared last week to discuss what it was like to be caught in the middle of the scandal, which followed an incident of alleged misconduct—and this week, Corinne Olympios stopped by to deliver her side of the story. Throughout the month, as the series has milked the scandal for all the drama it’s worth, it’s become increasingly clear that Bachelor in Paradise itself has no plans to acknowledge its own culpability in the mess. Throughout the month, the show has drafted the media as a scapegoat—but in reality it’s the show’s very concept (drunk people hooking up) that leaves its contestants at risk. And even with a new two-drink-per-hour maximum in place, it’s hard to imagine that something like what happened to Olympios and Jackson won’t eventually happen again.

That’s the news for this sunny day in New York. What are you seeing out there? Send tips, comments, and beautifully baked Cypriot flaounes to Hillary_Busis@condenast.com, and feel free to follow me on Twitter @hillibusterr.